British man sentenced to nearly three years in prison for movie piracy

On Thursday, 25-year-old Philip Danks was sentenced to 33 months in jail by a Wolverhampton judge for pirating a copy of Fast and Furious 6. Danks bragged that he was the first person in the world to seed the illicit recording, which he recorded from the back of a local cinema in May 2013. His upload was downloaded around 700,000 times.

The court also ruled that Michael Bell, the boyfriend of Danks' sister, played a part in distributing the film. He was sentenced to 120 hours of community service.

The film's distributor, Universal Pictures, argued to the judge that Danks' upload cost the company about £2.5 million. Danks had also sold DVD copies of the movie for £1.50 each. He said his total profit from the scheme was about £1,000.

According to Sky News, a team assembled by Universal Pictures to scour the Internet for pirated copies of the company's films discovered the video being shared with the handle “Thecod3r” attached to it. The team then found that the same handle was used on the online dating site Plenty of Fish. Using that bit of information, Universal and local police were able to determine that Danks had uploaded the video.

Enlarge/ The detective work it took to connect Danks with the movie he uploaded was truly extraordinary.

Danks was arrested only six days after he'd uploaded the video, and two days later he wrote on Facebook, "Seven billion people and I was the first. F*** you Universal Pictures." According to the BBC, Danks continued to distribute films after his arrest.

The prosecuting and defending attorneys both seemed to agree that Danks' motive for the piracy of Fast and Furious 6 was “Street Cred.” His defense attorney told the court, "He has no substantial assets of any sort, and his financial gain has been extremely limited, but he was obviously aware that it was a popular film that would be of interest."

The judge was particularly harsh on Danks because of his cavalier attitude. "This was bold, arrogant, and cocksure offending,” he said to Danks, as Sky News reports. "Your approach to the film industry was made clear in the posting you made on Facebook two days after your arrest. I accept the personal profit was modest, but the real seriousness of this case is the loss caused to the film industry as a whole."